Fenrir's Fangs

FOURTH AND LAST PART.

  Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the
pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more suffering than the
follies of the pitiful?
  Woe unto all loving ones who have not an elevation which is above
their pity!
  Thus spake the devil unto me, once on a time: "Ever God hath his
hell: it is his love for man."
  And lately did I hear him say these words: "God is dead: of his pity
for man hath God died."- ZARATHUSTRA, II., "The Pitiful."

                 61. The Honey Sacrifice

  -AND again passed moons and years over Zarathustra's soul, and he
heeded it not; his hair, however, became white. One day when he sat on
a stone in front of his cave, and gazed calmly into the distance-
one there gazeth out on the sea, and away beyond sinuous abysses,-
then went his animals thoughtfully round about him, and at last set
themselves in front of him.
  "O Zarathustra," said they, "gazest thou out perhaps for thy
happiness?"- "Of what account is my happiness!" answered he, "I have
long ceased to strive any more for happiness, I strive for my
work."- "O Zarathustra," said the animals once more, "that sayest thou
as one who hath overmuch of good things. Liest thou not in a
sky-blue lake of happiness?"- "Ye wags," answered Zarathustra, and
smiled, "how well did ye choose the simile! But ye know also that my
happiness is heavy, and not like a fluid wave of water: it presseth me
and will not leave me, and is like molten pitch."-
  Then went his animals again thoughtfully around him, and placed
themselves once more in front of him. "O Zarathustra," said they,
"it is consequently for that reason that thou thyself always
becometh yellower and darker, although thy hair looketh white and
flaxen? Lo, thou sittest in thy pitch!"- "What do ye say, mine
animals?" said Zarathustra, laughing; "verily I reviled when I spake
of pitch. As it happeneth with me, so is it with all fruits that
turn ripe. It is the honey in my veins that maketh my blood thicker,
and also my soul stiller."- "So will it be, O Zarathustra," answered
his animals, and pressed up to him; "but wilt thou not today ascend
a high mountain? The air is pure, and today one seeth more of the
world than ever."- "Yea, mine animals," answered he, "ye counsel
admirably and according to my heart: I will today ascend a high
mountain! But see that honey is there ready to hand, yellow, white,
good, ice-cool, golden-comb-honey. For know that when aloft I will
make the honey-sacrifice."-
  When Zarathustra, however, was aloft on the summit, he sent his
animals home that had accompanied him, and found that he was now
alone:- then he laughed from the bottom of his heart, looked around
him, and spake thus:

  That I spake of sacrifices and honey-sacrifices, it was merely a
ruse in talking and verily, a useful folly! Here aloft can I now speak
freer than in front of mountain-caves and anchorites' domestic
animals.
  What to sacrifice! I squander what is given me, a squanderer with
a thousand hands: how could I call that- sacrificing?
  And when I desired honey I only desired bait, and sweet mucus and
mucilage, for which even the mouths of growling bears, and strange,
sulky, evil birds, water:
  -The best bait, as huntsmen and fishermen require it. For if the
world be as a gloomy forest of animals, and a pleasure-ground for
all wild huntsmen, it seemeth to me rather- and preferably- a
fathomless, rich sea;
  -A sea full of many-hued fishes and crabs, for which even the gods
might long, and might be tempted to become fishers in it, and
casters of nets,- so rich is the world in wonderful things, great
and small!
  Especially the human world, the human sea:- towards it do I now
throw out my golden angle-rod and say: Open up, thou human abyss!
  Open up, and throw unto me thy fish and shining crabs! With my
best bait shall I allure to myself today the strangest human fish!
  -My happiness itself do I throw out into all places far and wide
'twixt orient, noontide, and occident, to see if many human fish
will not learn to hug and tug at my happiness;-
  Until, biting at my sharp hidden hooks, they have to come up unto my
height, the motleyest abyss-groundlings, to the wickedest of all
fishers of men.
  For this am I from the heart and from the beginning- drawing,
hither-drawing, upward-drawing, upbringing; a drawer, a trainer, a
training-master, who not in vain counselled himself once on a time:
"Become what thou art!"
  Thus may men now come up to me; for as yet do I await the signs that
it is time for my down-going; as yet do I not myself go down, as I
must do, amongst men.
  Therefore do I here wait, crafty and scornful upon high mountains,
no impatient one, no patient one; rather one who hath even unlearnt
patience,- because he no longer "suffereth."
  For my fate giveth me time: it hath forgotten me perhaps? Or doth it
sit behind a big stone and catch flies?
  And verily, I am well-disposed to mine eternal fate, because it doth
not hound and hurry me, but leaveth me time for merriment and
mischief; so that I have to-day ascended this high mountain to catch
fish.
  Did ever any one catch fish upon high mountains? And though it be
a folly what I here seek and do, it is better so than that down
below I should become solemn with waiting, and green and yellow-
  -A posturing wrath-snorter with waiting, a holy howl-storm from
the mountains, an impatient one that shouteth down into the valleys:
"Hearken, else I will scourge you with the scourge of God!"
  Not that I would have a grudge against such wrathful ones on that
account: they are well enough for laughter to me! Impatient must
they now be, those big alarm-drums, which find a voice now or never!
  Myself, however, and my fate- we do not talk to the Present, neither
do we talk to the Never: for talking we have patience and time and
more than time. For one day must it yet come, and may not pass by.
  What must one day come and may not pass by? Our great Hazar, that is
to say, our great, remote human-kingdom, the Zarathustra-kingdom of
a thousand years- -
  How remote may such "remoteness" be? What doth it concern me? But on
that account it is none the less sure unto me-, with both feet stand I
secure on this ground;
  -On an eternal ground, on hard primary rock, on this highest,
hardest, primary mountain-ridge, unto which all winds come, as unto
the storm-parting, asking Where? and Whence? and Whither?
  Here laugh, laugh, my hearty, healthy wickedness! From high
mountains cast down thy glittering scorn-laughter! Allure for me
with thy glittering the finest human fish!
  And whatever belongeth unto me in all seas, my in-and-for-me in
all things- fish that out for me, bring that up to me: for that do I
wait, the wickedest of all fish-catchers.
  Out! out! my fishing-hook! In and down, thou bait of my happiness!
Drip thy sweetest dew, thou honey of my heart! Bite, my
fishing-hook, into the belly of all black affliction!
  Look out, look out, mine eye! Oh, how many seas round about me, what
dawning human futures! And above me- what rosy red stillness! What
unclouded silence!